IntroductionChronic diseases, including heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, and chronic respiratory diseases, have emerged as a major health threat throughout the world but particularly in developing countries (1-4). Of the 58 million deaths that occurred worldwide in 2005, 35 million were attributable to chronic diseases, and 80% of these 35 million deaths occurred in developing countries (5). The annual number of deaths from chronic diseases is projected to increase to 41 million in the next 10 years, and most of these deaths will continue to occur in low- and middlein come countries (4,5).The emerging chronic disease epidemics in developing countries can be explained largely by social and economic changes that have led to increases in the prevalence of risk factors for these diseases (6-8). And increases in the prevalence of major risk factors such as high blood pressure, tobacco use, physical inactivity, obesity, and alcohol consumption have been associated with a large portion of new cases of chronic diseases (9).Evidence also shows that a large proportion of chronic disease cases are preventable and that the most costeffective approach to containing emerging epidemics of chronic diseases is to reduce the prevalence of their risk factors (4,8,10,11). Because people who have major risk factors for chronic diseases are at greatly increased risk of developing chronic diseases in the future (12), the more we know about today’s chronic disease risk factors, the better we will be able to control or prevent future chronic disease epidemics.Vietnam, a developing country with a population of more than 83 million, is undergoing a rapid epidemiologic transition characterized by an increase in the prevalence of chronic diseases. According to national statistics, from 1986 to 2002, the proportion of all hospital admissions attributable to chronic diseases increased from 39% to 68%, and the proportion of deaths attributable to chronic diseases increased from 42% to 69% (13). To address this increase in chronic diseases, the Vietnamese Government issued Decision No 77/2002/QD-TTg (Ratification of Programme of Prevention and Control of Certain Noncommunicable Diseases for the Period 2002–2010) (14), in which conducting research and surveillance and sharing epidemiologic information about chronic diseases were cited as urgently needed actions.
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